


I Hope You're Somewhere Praying.

by AliceinSpace



Series: This is where we start again. [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean finally talks to Sam, Despair, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Fix-it fic, Lots of Crying, M/M, Mourning Castiel, Post-15x19, angst like whoa, breaking down isn't ooc if you've been emotionally constipated for 15 years, brother hugs, pre-finale, so aptly named, so much crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceinSpace/pseuds/AliceinSpace
Summary: Dean cuts him off with a stumbling, choking voice: “He… he told me he loved me…”The silence is so loud.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: This is where we start again. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034997
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67





	I Hope You're Somewhere Praying.

**Author's Note:**

> Currently a WIP fix-it fic for the finale! Stay tuned!

It takes a week and copious amounts of alcohol for him to say the words out loud.

"Sammy…” he says, the first letter sloshing messily into the others. His knees wobble and he leans heavily against the doorframe.

His little brother looks up from the books spread out on the bed. He can already see the disappointment in his brother’s face. “Dean,” he starts tiredly, “how many have you–”

But Dean cuts him off with a stumbling, choking voice: “He… he told me he loved me…”

The silence is so loud. Dean is drowning in that dead stillness inside his own head. He is Empty.

“What are you talking about, who?”

But as he asks, Dean can see the dawn of understanding in Sam’s eyes, can see it all falling into place as Dean lets it all fall apart.

“Cas.”

He chokes on the name, on the height and breadth and depth of it.

“Castiel.”

The name that is his world.

“Before the Empty…”

Sam is rising from the bed, is coming to rescue his brother, even as Dean’s knees break down and he collapses like Jericho at the final trumpet blast. Dean hits the floor, the tiles blessedly cool under his knees, his splayed palm. Then Sam is crouching before him, saying his name, reaching for the beer bottle in his hand.

With a wailing shout, Dean throws the bottle down the hall. It shatters and spills and Sam jumps, but nothing changes. Nothing ever changes.

Both brothers are surprised when a thick sob rips its way out of Dean’s chest. It is the first of many. The pain, the anger, the grief, the love, everything that Dean hasn’t let himself feel, it boils up and brims over. His breaths come heavy and fast and he’s choking on them, they are drowning him, he’s going under and he doesn’t know if he’ll come up from perdition this time.

He feels hands on his shoulders. This time, his brother is here. He lets Sam pull him in. He lets his baby brother hold him longer than ever before. They are not the arms he longs for. But they are enough for this moment. Between and among the heaving sobs and the strangled breaths, he tells Sam everything. He repeats words he once said leaning against the Impala, tears in his eyes and horrors in his head: “I wish I didn’t feel anything… I wish I couldn’t feel a damn thing.”

And Sam holds him so tightly.

“I didn’t say anything to him, Sammy,” he cries. “I didn’t say anything, he saved me and he’s gone!”

He can feel Sam shaking, knows his brother is mourning too. But Sam has no regrets. Sam said everything that needed to be said. Sam wasn’t afraid.

“I didn’t say it, I didn’t tell him that I–”

He can’t say it now. Not when the one being in the world who deserved to hear it, who should have heard it, is gone.

And he isn’t coming back.

**Author's Note:**

> So the series finale is wrapping up as I type this, but I wanted to get this out in the world before I get to watch it tomorrow. It's been a wild ride, this show, and there have definitely been moments when I walked away from it for a time. But here, now, in the end, I'm happy to be a part of it and to have been shaped by it.
> 
> Destiel 2020.
> 
>   
> Title from Kesha's song Praying.
> 
> Update: I've seen the finale now and am planning on writing more for this to fix whatever the hell that was...


End file.
